This report presents the
results of a study conducted for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) to assess the highway safety effects of laws that prohibit open
containers of alcoholic beverages to be located in the passenger compartment
of motor vehicles operated on public roadways. These laws are commonly
referred to as Open Container laws.

The TEA-21 Restoration Act added Section 154 to Chapter 1 of Title 23,
United States Code (U.S.C.), to reduce alcohol-impaired driving, a serious
national public safety problem. Nearly 1.4 million people have died in
traffic crashes in the United States since 1966, the year the National
Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was passed. During the late 1960s
and early 1970s more than 50,000 people lost their lives each year on
our nation’s public roads and more than half of the motorists killed had
been drinking. Traffic safety has improved considerably since that time:
the annual death toll has declined to about 40,000, even though the numbers
of drivers, vehicles, and miles driven all have greatly increased. The
improvements in traffic safety are reflected in the change in fatality
rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled: The rate fell from 5.5 in
1966 to 1.5 in 1998 (FARS-Fatality Analysis Reporting System-98), a 73
percent improvement. When miles traveled are considered, the like­li­hood
of being killed in traffic in 1966 was more than three times what it is
today.

Despite the significant improvements in traffic safety during the past
two decades, an average of more than 115 people still die each day from
motor vehicle crashes in the United States. In addition to the human costs,
the economic losses from crashes are estimated to be more than $150 billion
annually, including $19 billion in medical and emergency expenses, $42
billion in lost productivity, $52 billion in property damage, and $37
billion in other crash-related costs (FARS-98). It is estimated that approximately
40 percent of fatal crashes involve a drinking driver and 29 percent of
the drivers who die in crashes have blood alcohol concentrations (BACs)
of 0.10 percent or greater.

Drinking and driving laws and the efforts of law enforcement personnel
have contributed to the substantial decline in the incidence of alcohol-involved
crashes (Stuster & Burns, 1998). The enactment and enforcement of uniformly
strong Open Container laws provides another potential means to help reduce
drinking and driving, and could lead to further reductions in the numbers
of alcohol-involved crashes. Previous research on the relationship between
Open Container laws and traffic safety is limited; however, there is evidence
that, from a traffic safety perspective, the most dangerous form of alcohol-consumption
is drinking in a vehicle (Ross, 1992). For example, a study of drivers
who were arrested for DWI in San Diego, California, found that more than
half of the violators had consumed alcohol in their vehicles soon after
purchasing it from liquor stores, convenience stores, or gasoline minimarts.2
The study found that the incidence of alcohol drinking in cars was nearly
three times greater when the beverages were purchased at gas stations,
compared to all other outlets (Segars & Ryan, 1986; Wittman, 1986). Similarly,
a study of DWI offenders in Santa Fe County, New Mexico found that 37
percent of the offenders who bought package liquor prior to arrest bought
their alcohol at a drive-up window, compared to 14 percent at a convenience/drug
store. Further, the offenders who bought at a drive-up window were 67
percent more likely to have been drinking in their vehicle prior to arrest,
and 67 percent more likely to be problem drinkers, than those who bought
package liquor elsewhere (Lewis, Lapham, & Skipper, 1998).

In addition to problem drinkers, officers report that underage youth
exhibit a preference for drinking in vehicles. The danger asso­ciated
with underage drinking and driving is compounded by a tendency to con­sume
all of the alcoholic beverage available (because usually it cannot be
stored). Other factors, including a lack of driving experience and skill,
exacerbate this problem.